24th Regular Session Human Rights Council

9 - 27 September 2013

Joint Oral Statement – ITEM 3 – General Debate

“Right to Development and the Post-2015 Agenda”

Co-signed by: Associazione Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII (APG23), International Catholic

Child Bureau (BICE), Caritas Internationalis (International Confederation of Catholic

Charities), Company of the Daughters of Charity of Vincent de Paul, Dominicans for Justice

and Peace (Order of Preachers), Edmund Rice International, Franciscan International,

International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), Istituto Internazionale Maria

Ausiliatrice delle Salesiane di Don Bosco (IIMA), International Organization for the Right to

Education and Freedom of Education (OIDEL), Marist International, New Humanity,

International Volunteerism Organization for Women, Education and Development (VIDES)

and VIVAT International.

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ASSOCIAZIONE COMUNITÀ PAPA GIOVANNI XXIII

Thank You, Mr. President!

APG23 and the other 14 co-signing NGOs welcome the report on Right to Development of the Intergovernmental Working Group and the consolidated report of the Secretary General and High Commissioner for Human Rights. Our organizations are present at grass-root level and work with people living in poverty, in both developing and developed countries. On a daily basis, we observe how crucial and urgent it is for all countries to fully implement the Right to Development in order to overcome structural international and national obstacles that are root causes of increasing inequities and that perpetuate extreme poverty. We commend the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the OHCHR Right to Development Section for their continuous efforts to mainstream Right to Development in all UN events and OHCHR documents. Especially, we appreciate the letter of Madame Pillay, to all the Permanent Missions in New York and Geneva, entitled “Human Rights in the Post-2015 Agenda”, which clearly invites inclusion of the Right to Development in the agenda of relevant United Nations structures and processes. The co-signatory NGOs firmly believe that the Post-2015 development agenda should avoid the limited view of the previous MDG agenda and adopt, at every level, a human rights based approach that includes a focus on the Right to Development. In this regard, we welcome the report of the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons since it explicitly mentions the Right to Development in the paragraph referring to a new global partnership. We also believe that International Solidarity to be recognised as a right and the Right to Development are interlinked and mutually reinforcing, and both are keys to the achievement of a true integral development of individuals and peoples. In view of the on-going debate on the Post-2015 Agenda, it is important to put more emphasis on the implementation of the Right to Development for realising an enabling international and national environment to eradicate poverty and inequities. It is also necessary for the Intergovernmental Working Group on Right to Development to speed up the process of revising the criteria and operational sub-criteria. There is no need to “reinvent the wheel” when, as a human family, we already have at our disposal the right lenses to set our sight on the best post-2015 goals for the common good of humanity. Such lenses are Right to Development and International Solidarity!